2024-04-16 10:28
A New Angle on Fairies
I let the anniversary of this blog go by without a mention – FIFTEEN years! – because I’m struggling with my health (mental, physical, emotional… Read More
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TRYING TO STAY IN BALANCE...THE BLOG OF VIVIENNE TUFFNELL
2024-02-29 13:57
“Where The Wildflowers Grow” by Leif Bersweden – a review
As a first blog post of the year, one that refers to a book that was a Christmas present sort of redeems the fa… Read More
2023-12-30 11:59
Books I read in 2023
As 2023 draws to its close, I have totted up the books I have read this year (that I managed to write down in my “Books what I have read” note book) and i… Read More
2023-09-30 12:18
Where’s my DOPAMINE? On finally finishing writing a book.
About ten days ago, I limped to the finishing line of completing the first draft of “On Hob Hill.” It took me a… Read More
2023-08-27 11:05
Tales of the Well-Spring 8 – St Helen’s Well and Elen of the Ways
Already we are in August(and rapidly approaching September) and I’ve written so few blog posts this yea… Read More
2023-06-04 13:53
Not Recovering from Anything
According to some, the pandemic is over with. Done. Finished. History. Well, I’d say it’s certainly history. Living through such a disruptive and… Read More
2023-04-25 11:22
Tales of the Well-Spring 7 – Red Spring, White Spring
The other day I was looking through my dream journals, going back around ten years, and while I was looking for one dream in pa… Read More
2023-02-19 10:07
Rewilding for Butterflies and Moths
In the tidal wave of gloom, doom and dreadfulness I personally find myself often crushed entirely by the weight of what’s wrong with the world. I… Read More
2023-02-04 10:24
A New Year Begins At Imbolc
Happy New Year!
You might think I am late but it depends when you decide a new year starts. The Celts started their new year at Samhain (our Halloween). The… Read More
2022-12-31 11:13
Not Too Bad, All Things Considered – 2022 and all that it involved.
There’s a profound difference how different nationalities respond to being asked how they are. The wonderfu… Read More
2022-05-15 10:52
Voice from the Cave – a new book
I’ve not written a blog since November last year. Six months of silence. It’s not that I haven’t had anything to say. I have. I ke… Read More
2021-11-07 12:09
During the early part of the pandemic, one of the things that a great number of people have found hard was not being able to access their hairdresser or barber. My FB and Twitter feeds were… Read More
2021-09-19 13:09
“Bleeding for Jesus” by Andrew Graystone – a review and some comments
I don’t often review books on my blog; I’ve tried to steer clear of being a book review… Read More
2021-08-28 13:41
Nine Perfect Strangers versus Six Imperfect Pilgrims
I’ve been a subscriber to New Scientist magazine for many years; indeed, I’ve had a couple of letters published and I even… Read More
2021-08-02 15:20
For those following this, the next chapter analysis is up.
It’s kind of like being psychoanalysed via one of my books; albeit the book that I probably feel most sense of pride and a… Read More
2021-07-21 09:35
Revelations of Neurodivergence (part one)
This is a very deeply personal and quite difficult post to write for an assortment of reasons that I hope will become clear. It’s also some… Read More
2021-07-06 14:38
The inimitable “We Lack Discipline” are doing a chapter by chapter critique of my novel, “The Bet”. This is for chapter 2. I suspect it’s probably at least as l… Read More
2021-06-27 14:28
https://welackdiscipline.com/2021/06/27/we-lack-discipline-reads-the-bet-chapter-1/
We Lack Discipline is doing a chapter-by-chapter review/critique of my novel “The Bet”. I c… Read More
2021-05-21 09:20
On Keeping a Dream Journal
Dreams: there’s a divisive and complicated topic for you that will polarise most groups. Many people are indifferent to the concept of dreams, dismissing… Read More
2021-05-08 14:06
It’s very gratifying to get new reviews on a book that’s been out a few years but when it’s the first of a series of articles on said book, it’s a definite red letter… Read More
2021-04-04 14:45
Year’s Mind
A year is a strange thing. 365 point something days, during which the earth orbits the sun and spins on her axis, eventually bringing you back round to the same date. It… Read More
2021-03-25 10:36
This is a trial post just to see if I can negotiate the new block editor.
Winter twilight
Twilight on a snowy day
And the trees stand out,
Darkly inked lines hard
Against a g… Read More
2021-03-20 10:45
The last two years have been possibly the hardest consecutive years of my life. They’ve been packed with bereavement, sadness, illness (shingles twice, for heaven’s sake) worry… Read More
2021-01-06 11:51
Of Violets and of Moss
There are violets that grow in my garden; there’s a patch of them at the end of the drive which is expanding steadily, year on year, and because the garden there… Read More
2020-12-18 11:37
A beautiful reading of “Angel Lights”, one of the tales from
Méchant Loup: Modern Fables
for Sensible Grown-ups
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B083HGHSRB/… Read More
2020-10-18 11:53
A small blue bird of grace
If you have known me a while, or have followed this blog for any time, you’ll probably know that for me the kingfisher is a sort of talisman. It’s a s… Read More
2020-09-05 09:20
Pumpkin Spice as An Ancestral Issue
It’s getting to that time of year again. The nights are drawing in, and the heat of only a matter of weeks ago is a memory (thank goodness; I wasn&r&hell…Read More
2020-08-02 09:32
Lammas: Replenishing the Life-Well
Since the pandemic lock-down began here in the UK, I’ve not spent a night away from home. The furthest I have travelled was a two hour drive to my mo… Read More
2020-06-19 16:29
A Light When All Other Lights Go Out
How are you? I mean, really HOW ARE YOU? Be honest, if you have the strength to be, because it really does take strength these days to express your real… Read More
2020-06-01 12:09
The Extraordinary Animal That Is Grief
I thought I knew about grief. I’ve written enough about it, after all’s said and done. I thought I understood it.
But I realise that like… Read More
2020-04-30 19:38
Beltane at the Cave
The sky is darkening, from an intense pale blue to a darker but equally intense and clear blue, flecked with clouds the colour of doves’ wings and that faint blush… Read More
2020-04-10 12:09
Mending the Cosmic Egg
One of the most pervasive of symbols in creation myths is that of the World or Cosmic egg. From the earliest recorded example of this concept in Sanskrit scriptures, r… Read More
2020-03-28 14:00
Dame Julian and self-isolation – some lessons from the 14th century
Despite having her writings, we actually know surprisingly little about Dame Julian,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J… Read More
2020-03-17 11:52
No, I won’t be writing my version of King Lear
In the light of potential or actual self-isolation, lock-down or general quarantine, there have been a lot of comments, posts, memes and… Read More
2020-02-26 13:46
The questions you can no longer ask
(Content note for bereavement and poignancy)
When someone passes away, there’s a lot left behind for others to deal with. Paperwork that could sink… Read More
2020-02-10 10:43
On the Dominance of Filthy Lucre
You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrases, “Money makes the world go round,” and “The love of money is the root of all evil”. In rec… Read More
2020-01-29 12:16
World Weary Woman – her wound and transformation by Cara Barker
If you were to ask me (I don’t recommend it if you are looking for a cheerful, uplifting answer) how I am, my most… Read More
2020-01-16 11:24
The incredible power of myths and fairy-tales
One of the highlights of last year (which was a truly awful year in most respects) was having the chance to go on a workshop with Caitlín… Read More
2020-01-08 08:44
Méchant Loup
Modern Fables for Sensible Grown-ups
Time for a big announcement.
New book!
Yes, finally. When I was glancing through the files for this one, I saw that the start of the… Read More
2020-01-04 13:27
Brand new year – same old me
I’ve never quite understood the hype of New Year. The changing of the calender is, in modern times, quite arbitrary. It pays no heed to celestial eve… Read More
2019-12-22 13:43
A Troubling Vision
I am sorry; this is not a Christmassy post, so please feel free to ignore if you simply cannot face more doom. I know we are all trying to keep our own sanity and self-ca… Read More
2019-12-13 10:19
Normally I tend to write a post, then copy it and paste it here. For once, I am writing directly into the blog.
I went to bed last night feeling sick with fear, anxiety and sheer disappoint… Read More
2019-11-26 11:03
A Living Nightmare of a Decade?
There’s been a thing going round. One of those things. Posting a picture from ten years ago and one from this year, to illustrate the changes in a decad… Read More
2019-09-23 15:54
To catch the wind
There was a busker in Norwich, singing to his guitar, and as I walked past, I found myself in a brief flood of tears. He was singing an old song, one redolent of the sixtie… Read More
2019-07-16 19:34
Aiming for the stars
The 50th anniversary of the first Moon landings is rapidly approaching. It’s set me thinking about various things, but I’ll stick to one or two here. I am ol… Read More
2019-06-24 13:45
“We left the camp singing” – the interrupted life of Etty Hillesum
These words, written on a postcard thrown from a cattle transport on its way out of Holland to Poland and… Read More
2019-05-09 12:39
It never rains but…
You know the saying, and others like “troubles never come singly”. It seems to be true. The last blog post I wrote, I said I was very close to releasin… Read More
2019-04-05 12:50
Fragments and Inertia (musings and mutterings)
In the ten or so years since I began blogging I’ve seen a lot written about SEO (search engine optimisation), detailing how to gain great… Read More
2019-03-06 07:50
For reasons best known to itself, the Mighty ‘Zon has lowered the price of “Away With The Fairies” to £6.65 (UK, not sure about US). There’s no way of telling h… Read More
2019-02-08 15:28
A Decade of Tightrope Walking – a celebration of ten years of blogging
February the 9th marks a full decade since I began Zen and the Art of Tightrope Walking.
I’m genuinely not… Read More
2019-01-15 11:59
Small things to reduce plastic use and other green tips
With the New Year came a plethora of articles and television programmes, basically with a new year-new you theme. The tidy fairy aka M… Read More
2019-01-06 12:02
An Epiphany, of sorts
Today marks Epiphany, the festival that for most marks the end of all things Christmas. It commemorates the arrival of the Magi, coming to pay their respects to the inf… Read More
2018-12-23 11:40
O Christmas Tree!
(a slightly cynical short tale)
“What am I bid for this lovely set of vintage, nay, antique, Christmas tree ornaments? Who’ll start the bidding at £10?&rd&hell…Read More
2018-12-01 12:38
It’s the most wonderful time of the year…
Actually, for many, it absolutely ISN’T. I’m not a fan of Christmas; I don’t get starry-eyed and enthusiastic about g… Read More
2018-11-23 10:34
The Second Coming
(warning: possibly another depressing post. Sorry.)
You’ve probably come across the line: things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. It’s from Yeats’ clas… Read More
2018-10-30 12:07
Samhain at the Cave
It’s been so long since I visited this place that I am strangely afraid. Afraid that it will not be here, or I will not be welcome. Or that I will find everything c… Read More
2018-10-21 10:15
…and I have some spooktacular* offers for you to enjoy.
I have (for the duration of the season and maybe beyond) made my shorter works a little cheaper.
This means that my novella The… Read More
2018-10-10 09:58
It’s Ground Hog Day – no, sorry, it’s #WorldMentalHealthDay
(Warning: serious gloom ahead. Just letting you know.)
Just like Christmas, World Mental Health Day takes me by… Read More
2018-08-26 11:54
The vital importance of beauty, truth and hope in books
As a card-carrying depressive, I’m not someone known for being an optimist. I’m sometimes like the love child of Marvin th… Read More
2018-08-11 14:04
Tales of the Well-Spring 6 – returning to Source
“Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away” says the old hymn.
And its daughters too, though we still seem t… Read More
2018-07-04 10:29
Exploring and exploding the “Just World Hypothesis.”
You may not have heard of the Just World hypothesis (sometimes referred to as the Just World fallacy) but there’s few p… Read More
2018-06-22 08:26
I was honoured to be a guest on Jane Davis’ blog yesterday. You can read it here:
https://jane-davis.co.uk/2018/06/20/an-exploration-of-art-in-fiction-part-3-grief-art-and-writing-by-v… Read More
2018-06-19 12:05
One Year On: happy first birthday to “Little Gidding Girl”
This week marks a whole year since I released “Little Gidding Girl.” A year. I’d like to say it&rsquo&hell…Read More
2018-05-24 15:01
Be More Snail – snail medicine for self-preservation
No, you will be relieved to know I am not touting the skin cream that uses snail slime as its main ingredient.
I’m a fan of t… Read More
2018-05-07 11:46
The insidious perversion
You know how sometimes a sentence or a few words or an event can set of a train of thought that goes into some sort of underground tunnel, rumbling away unseen unti… Read More
2018-05-02 11:16
The reality of a loss of faith
There has much been written over the millennia on a phenomena known as loss of faith and I’m going to add to those many millions of words with a few of m… Read More
2018-04-18 19:26
The Unicorn in the Walled Garden
The Thermal Springs are Frozen
I’ve been having some powerful dreams again lately; ones that somehow defy the usual noodling that is the brain doing i… Read More
2018-04-07 10:00
I’ve not done a Countdown offer for some years; this works by starting low (99p usually) and rising in installments. I’d opted out of the Kindle select programme that allows such… Read More
2018-03-13 11:07
How to Eat an Elephant, writer-style
You probably all know the answer to this riddle, don’t you?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
It sounds silly, really. If you are a m… Read More
2018-03-03 09:46
“The Idiot Brain” and me ~ a review and some thoughts
Everyone likes a bargain, don’t they? When I was browsing the reviews of another book on the brain, a negative review… Read More
2018-02-26 09:21
On the toxic effects of secrecy and secret groups
“Shhh…this is our little secret. Don’t tell anyone, anyone at all.”
How many cases of abuse, of both children and a… Read More
2018-02-19 09:18
Do Not
Do not tell me
What I am,
What I can do,
What I must think,
Who I must be,
In order to be
A good person,
An acceptable person
A sound person
A person you might like.
Do not tell me
Th… Read More
2018-01-31 15:59
If
If there were railings I could lock myself to,
I’d be there, rattling my chains like Marley’s ghost.
If there were a horse I could accost with a ribbon,
I’d brave those… Read More
2018-01-18 15:28
Caterpillar soup
Some years ago I came across a rather curious theory, suggesting that caterpillars and butterflies (or moths) are somehow two different animals in one. You can read about th… Read More
2017-12-29 11:33
The Bad, the Good, and the Indifferent: 2017 in review
The sands of time are trickling to the bottom bulb of the egg-timer of 2017. I’m not sure if it’s hard-boiled or burned-out… Read More
2017-12-20 12:55
My Reading Round-Up of 2017
According to my notebook that I use instead of Goodreads (which I loathe, more of that later) I read 78 books in 2016. I’m coming in a bit behind that this… Read More
2017-12-01 09:10
A Story of Snow
It snowed yesterday, the first time this winter; I could smell it coming for days. I’ve always found snow magical, a transformational thing, but this snow before Christ… Read More
2017-11-21 16:30
“The Lantern Bearers” by Rosemary Sutcliff
Sometimes a book comes back to you, decades after you first read it, and you find there was far more to it than you grasped at the time… Read More
2017-11-12 13:51
Tyne Cot Cemetery
Blood-red the berries the yew trees bear,
Flesh-soft amid the shining dark, yet the fruit falls
Uneaten and ignored, for few birds feed here.
Bone-white the headstones, r… Read More
2017-11-06 09:26
“It’s the quiet ones you need to watch…”
When I wrote Little Gidding Girl, the world was a different place. We’d only just got broadband internet, and compared… Read More
2017-10-31 10:23
I had intended to share a short story here, one called The Salmon’s Leap. It would have been a perfect tale for the time of year; poignant, spooky and unsettling.
But then I read this… Read More
2017-10-25 11:16
Ringing Some Changes
Sometimes I hate trying to think of titles for blog posts. After more than a thousand, it gets hard not to repeat myself, and to be honest, this one is just a sort of ro… Read More
2017-10-12 10:44
Times they are a-changing (I hope) ~ on the prevalence of sexual harassment & on why we’re starting to speak up.
You’d have to have been under a rock not to have noticed the… Read More
2017-10-09 07:08
Today I have the honour of hosting a post by Roz Morris, whose latest book “Not Quite Lost” came out a week ago today. I very much enjoyed this tale of travels (mostly arou… Read More
2017-09-28 08:24
Ozymandias in the City
Great blind eyes stare out
From centuries, no, millennia past,
Smooth blank orbs that show
Little or nothing of the man
But everything of the god-king
Who ruled like n… Read More
2017-09-21 09:12
Seasons and Polarities
As human beings we reflect the tides and seasons of the places we live in; the rhythm of the seasons is our rhythm, even though we often try to ignore this. When you… Read More
2017-09-13 09:10
My second go on the Undercover Soundtrack… enjoy!
My Memories of a Future Life
The Undercover Soundtrack is a series where I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative env… Read More
2017-09-11 07:04
No-one Should Be Left Behind
August is now behind us and with it, my summer holiday. We managed to get away for a while (a big achievement, actually) and one of our destinations was Glastonb… Read More
2017-08-21 06:49
Cover Story
(the art of book covers from an author without much of a clue)
A recent review of Little Gidding Girl mentioned the image on the cover, querying why the figure is fairly slender… Read More
2017-08-10 10:28
“There’s gold in them there hills…oh, no, now wait a minute…!”
A couple of years ago now we worked our way through a dvd box set of the hit series Deadwood. S… Read More
2017-07-30 11:31
Many thanks to Suzie for hosting me.
No more wriggling out of writing ......
Today on Nowriggling I am thrilled to have a guest post by Vivienne Tuffnell. Viv has written for me before, not… Read More
2017-07-24 07:12
Wheat from the Chaff – is it possible to differentiate an author from their books?
Some years ago, I read a book by a big name famous author and was fairly unimpressed by it. I’d… Read More
2017-07-20 09:00
I was asked to write a guest post for Books by Women and this is what I came up with:
http://booksbywomen.org/a-wrinkle-in-my-time-line-by-vivienne-tuffnell/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm… Read More
2017-07-13 10:23
Too Fast. Too Furious. Too Far. Too Much.
No, I’m not reviewing the latest offering in the Fast & Furious franchise (incidentally, they are quite good escapist fun that pay no atte… Read More
2017-07-05 11:32
We’re all mad here….
SC Skillman Blog
I’m delighted to host author Vivienne Tuffnell today on my blog. I’ve followed Vivienne’s blog Zen and the Art of Tightro… Read More
2017-06-29 15:51
The World of The Teigr Princess
I have the absolute pleasure of introducing one of the most unique authors I know. Her books are beautifully written, multilayered stories that are entertain… Read More
2017-06-24 18:18
Mid-life crisis or a coming-of-age?
Wandering On Dark Shores....
Hallo all;
this week we have a treat for you: a guest post by the lovely Vivienne Tuffnell, whose latest book Little Giddi… Read More
2017-06-21 09:52
Little Gidding Girl is in the process of publishing. The UK link for the ebook has gone live here. The paperback link is here (they will be joined up at some point)
The Launch party on FB is… Read More
2017-06-12 08:26
After much work and heart-searching, I decided that I’d choose a date for the launch of Little Gidding Girl, and since the story starts at the Autumn Equinox, the launch is going to be… Read More
2017-05-29 09:29
What to do while you’re waiting for the postman…
About ten days ago, I wrestled my way through the long-put-off edits for Little Gidding Girl, excising any direct quotes from T… Read More
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